Venture Capital (VC) Funding for Robotics in 2015

January 12, 2016 by Travis Deyle

2015 was an insane year for robotics companies; they raised $922.7M in VC funding -- 170% more than in 2014. I'm almost certain that it exceeds $1 Billion, especially if you account for funding events in Asia (opaque to me) or if you take into account companies at the periphery of robotics (sensing, software, 3D printing, etc). Similar to previous years, a large portion of the funding went to medical companies and drone companies, but we also saw a lot of late-stage consumer robot financings this year (such as Jibo and Sphero) -- but comparatively few agricultural or service robots. Still, I think it's safe to say: 2015 was the year of the robotics startup!

Total: > $922.7 Million†*

* I only included funding events with public sources, and I opted to leave off any funding that was under $1 Million. I also ignored crowdfunding, since these arrangements do not typically involve equity transfer. Furthermore, it is harder and harder to determine "what constitutes a robotics company." I used my own dictatorial judgment; feel free to disagree in the comments. For example, I generally don't include 3D printers in my robotics tally, so that meant I didn't count Carbon3D's massive $100M round. I also don't count corporate "spinouts" or "joint ventures" such as Toyata's $1B Robotics R&D Efforts in Silicon Valley or Softbank's $236M Robotics Holding Group. Finally, I almost always miss a few funding rounds; let me know in the comments (with a credible source!).

† Many thanks to Frank Tobe and Tim Smith for providing me some lists of their own. In fact, Frank does such a good job that I may pass the torch off to him in future years. There's little sense in duplicating our efforts... plus then I can spend the 10(ish) hours it takes to prepare this list on something more personally fulfilling -- like hacking on robots or writing more techy Hizook articles. ;)

Auris Surgical ($150 Million)

Auris is developing a microsurgical robot for eye surgeries, such as cataract removal. They raised $150 Million this year.

DJI ($75 Million)

DJI is the leader in the drone space. They were predicting $1B in sales in 2015, and they raised $75 Million this year -- those are insane numbers (large revenue and small funding).

3D Robotics ($64 Million)

3DR is another big player in the drone (esp consumer drone) space. They raised a total of $64 Million this year in two parts: a $50 Million initial funding and a $14 Million follow-on. I know they're located nearby me in SFBA... and despite a warm invitation by CEO Chris Anderson to come visit, I still haven't seen their facilities. I'll have to remedy that in 2016, assuming the invite is still on the table. :)

Aeryon Labs ($60 Million)

More drones. I'm not familiar with Aeryon's products... but they must be pretty big, as they raised $60 Million this year.

Yuneec Electric Aviation ($60 Million)

Still more drones. Yuneec is a Chinese drone manufacturer, and they received $60 Million from Intel this year.

Jibo ($52.3 Million)

It was a bit confusing, but it seems like Jibo raised $52.3 Million this year across three events: $11 Million, $16 Million, and $25.3 Million (confirmed via Crunchbase). To be honest, I'm really worried for Jibo. Depending on how they did their financing... they're either valued upwards of $250M or they took on massive dilution. Either one of those could be really precarious if their product doesn't have a massive showing in the next 18 months (or if the economic climate turns); while their Kickstarter went really well... it wasn't that good. Raising so much before shipping a product can be dangerous...

Orbotics / Sphero ($45 Million)

Sphero, formerly Orbotics, raised $45 Million this year. Partnering with Disney and Starwars was exactly what this company needed! Their BB-8 toy will be a big hit (cool teardown), and it's a great riff on their original Sphero product!

Zymergen ($44 Million)

Zymergen is using robot automation to help automate chemistry and biology lab experimentation; they raised $44 Million in 2015.

EHANG ($42 Million)

Rethink Robotics ($40 Million)

Confirmed on Crunchbase, Rethink Robotics raised $40 million in two installments: $26.6 million and $13.4 million. That takes their total to $113.5 Million. I've heard they're having growing pains (good product, but lagging sales).... which may not bode well.

GreyOrange ($30 Million)

Grey Orange is essentially a Kiva knockoff targeting the rest of the world outside the US. They raised $30 Million this year. Given the striking similarities between their system and the one now owned and operated by Amazon, I imagine they'll have a hard time operating in the US due to IP restrictions.

Medrobotics ($25 Million)

Medrobotics raised another $25 Million this year for it's "Flex" medical robot.

Xenex ($25 Million)

This is one of my favorite medical robot companies, because their UV-disinfecting robot is just so simple, pragmatic, and effective! They raised $25 Million this year.

CyPhy Works ($22 Million)

CyPhy Works, the "tethered drone" startup cofounded by Helen Greiner, raised another $22 Million this year after a rather successful Kickstarter to enter the consumer drone space. It will be interesting to see how things evolve for CyPhy with the recent FAA rule changes, which seem to indicate that tethered drones (formerly powered kites) will now be subject to the same restrictions as normal drones.

Fetch Robotics ($20 Million)

Melonee and my friends at Fetch Robotics raised $20 Million this year to put a new, more-modern spin on the pick, pack, and ship warehouse operation space. Congrats y'all!

Blue River Technologies ($17 Million)

Blue River technologies is the only major agricultural robot company on this year's list. They raised $17 Million this year and continue to grow healthily. One thing I really like about Blue River: They demonstrated that the "lean startup" method is also applicable to hardware and robotics -- the article about their beginnings should be a must-read for robotics entrepreneurs. I should dedicate a Hizook post to this topic some time...

Peloton Technology ($17 Million)

Peloton Technologies raised $17 Million to build "follow the leader" style autonomous big-rigs. This will eventually exist, so I'm rooting for them.

Lily Robotics ($14 Million)

Now this is how you do pre-orders! Lily Robotics managed to get $34 Million in preorders for its personal drones, and then went on to raise just $14 Million in funding. This is a much more sane amount of fundraising... (I'm looking at you, Jibo.)

Cruise ($12.5 Million)

My friends at Cruise managed to raise $12.5 Million to retrofit cars for autonomy. They definitely have an up-hill battle to compete against all the big boys; at this point, basically every single major auto manufacturer has an autonomous car program.

Zimplistic ($11.5 Million)

I almost didn't include this one on the list... but Zimplistic, who makes a "robotic" flatbread machine, managed to raise $11.5 Million this year. They have insane traction, and something like $72 Million in backorders. I wonder if a tortilla machine would be equally viable...?

Clearpath Robotics ($11.2 Million)

Clearpath Robotics makes a whole suite of academic and industrial robots. This year they raised $11.2 Million, and are supposedly planning to enter the warehouse-style material transport space.

Virtual Incision Technologies ($11.2 Million)

Drone Deploy ($9 Million)

I'm including Drone Deploy on this list too, since they work almost exclusively with robots (though their product seems to be almost exclusively software). They raised $9 Million this year for their SaaS product.

Wonder Workshop / Play-i ($6.9 Million)

Formerly Play-I, Wonder Workshop raised $6.9 Million for their small programmable toy products. I'm really curious to hear how many units they've sold to date.

Bionik Labs ($6.2 Million)

Bionik raised $6.2 Million to bring their medical exoskeleton products to market.

Squadrone System ($5 Million)

Squadrone also makes a drone platform. They raised $5 Million to bring their HEXO+ platform to market.

PetNet ($4 Million)

I wasn't sure about including this one... but I did anyway. We're going to see a lot of consumer robots in the next two years targeting pet owners, and PetNet is one of the early entrants to the market. So here it is; they raised $4 Million this year.

Sky Futures ($3.8 Million)

More drones, more money. Sky Futures wants to use drones for oil and gas inspections -- a very legit market I've looked at a bit myself. They raised $3.8 Million this year.

Gamma2 Robotics ($3.5 Million)

Gamma2 makes physical security robots for server farms and whatnot, and the closed their $3.5 Million Series A this year.

Dronomy ($1.5 Million)

Catalia Health ($1.5 Million)

Catalia is building personal healthcare robots (tabletop?) that interact with patients and doctors. It seems that it's the successor to Intuitive Automata, as it was also founded by Cory Kidd. They recently raised $1.5 Million.

MiR: Mobile Industrial Robots ($1.4 Million)

Dash Robotics ($1.4 Million)

Dash Robotics is a spinout of a UC Berkeley robotics lab that did research on unique construction methods. After a successful $60k in preorders via Kickstarter, they raised $1.4 Million. Given the low COGS, I imagine Dash could be insanely profitable if they can nail the distribution deals -- sort of like HexBugs. I like their prospects if they can keep burn low.

Parrot is a publicly traded company, so its funding was not "venture capital" per se. In fact, there were a number of publicly traded companies that received cash infusions (eg. additional stock offerings) this year, but those are not considered VC either.

Hi, Travis! Thank you for your article(s). I am the new Chief Operating Officer for TelepresenceRobots.com and was wondering if you may have any stats or figures corresponding to how much has been invested in telepresence robotics in particular. However, even if not, thanks for your work in compiling this information!

Thank you very much for the time and organization you have put into the list above. My brother and I have an Engineering firm based out of So Cal. called Kohlex. We have a project that is 2 years in the making of which we have just filed our patent documents.

My question is this, what is the best way to find the VC groups that are focusing on and understand what the Robotics industry is and where it is headed. We are looking for funding and feel a group already in the know of Robotics may be helpful.

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